Western Hatsune Miku fans would surely be celebrating this week, if only they could tear themselves away from the newest rhythm game in the Project DIVA series.

Released in Japan last June, those of us outside the Land of the Rising Sun never thought we’d see the game released in our territories. Thankfully Sega surprised us all late last year, announcing that Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA Future Tone would be dancing its way westward in the new year. Earlier this week, it finally arrived on PS4.

If you’re familiar with the Project DIVA rhythm games that have previously graced the PlayStation 3, 4 and Vita (and prior to that, in Japan only, the PSP and arcades), then you’ll feel right at home here, as you hit notes in time while Miku and her Vocaloid pals sing and dance their digital hearts out. Future Tone itself is a port of 2013’s Japanese arcade release Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA Arcade Future Tone, and can be found on the PlayStation Store as a free, base-game download with two songs, as well as two paid add-on packs – Colourful Tone and Future Sound – which each contain over a hundred songs. The packs are £24.99 a pop, or you can grab a bundle containing everything for a more than reasonable £44.99. That will net you 220 songs, as well as hundreds of modules (outfits) and accessories for all six Vocaloids.

While Future Tone is definitely a Project DIVA game, its mechanics do differ a little from the console series. First off, the positives: scratch notes are no more! I was never a fan of these, as I thought they just served to make stretches of a song a bit boring and lacking in challenge. Here, they’re replaced by directional slide notes, which would be activated via a touch panel on the arcade machine. On PS4, you can play these either via L1/R1 or tilting either stick in the displayed direction. These feel more interactive than scratch notes ever did, and come in a couple of different types – short slides that basically only require a press of a shoulder button or a flick of an analogue stick, or lengthier slides that require a hold. I prefer to use the stick for these, as they feel more tactile.

Hold notes are also different. In Future Tone, they have no tail to denote their length, and there’s actually no requirement to hold them at all; if you want, you can just tap them like a normal note marker and move on without fear of damaging your combo, but holding will add to your score quite substantially, especially if you can get a multi-note hold going.

Speaking of multi-note inputs, these are also different, and it’s here where Future Tone provides most of its challenge, at least to me. These new linked notes task you with tapping or holding two different inputs at once; think the arrow notes from the Project DIVA series, except in Future Tone you’ll often need to hit two different buttons – rather than, say, up and triangle, you might have to hit X and O. Sometimes you’ll have to hit three or four buttons at the same time, and these really do take some getting used to as there’s nothing like them in the previous games. You can of course (indeed, should) use d-pad inputs as well as the face buttons, but still, these are always the bits where my runs fall apart as I try to make sense of what I’m seeing on the screen in the split-second I have to respond, panic, and subsequently flub a whole section. Go me!

While the most recent title, Project DIVA X, was a bit of a letdown, Future Tone represents a massive improvement simply by pruning the fluff of past games. The Project DIVA series has long offered some light simulation/relationship elements, such as building friendships with the Vocaloids and buying gifts for them to display in their rooms, but Future Tone sweeps all of this aside in favour of simply presenting the player with over 200 songs to play, all unlocked from the start. It’s just a pure rhythm game with tons and tons of content, and it’s exactly what I wanted the next game in the series to be. If I have any complaints, it’s that while you can create custom playlists, you can’t actually play through them – the game only allows you to watch them as music videos, which is nice (and any snapshots you take here will also show up during the game’s brief loading screens), but seems oddly restrictive – and there’s no Matryoshka, though as there’s no GUMI in Future Tone, it’s an understandable omission.

If you’ve ever been curious about these games but never jumped in, now is the perfect time. Quite honestly, Project DIVA Future Tone is the ultimate Miku game. It may not have every song, but you’ll be hard pressed to feel let down by the song list. The only question is where does the series go from here? It’d be a little disappointing to go back to smaller releases after this hefty offering, so my hope is that this game will serve as an evolving platform going forward, with Sega adding songs new and old to the game over time. And maybe even GUMI, too.

It’s also another sign that Sega might be starting to wake up to their fans outside of Japan. Releasing the best Miku game ever is a hell of a strong start to the year, a year in which we’re also going to be seeing Yakuzas 0 and Kiwami, Valkyria Revolution, a couple of new Sonic titles and more. It’s also coming hot on the heels of the news that Sega has registered websites related to HD remasters of Shenmue, so it seems there are reasons for fans to be cheerful after all.

The seemingly impossible has happened, as Sega have confirmed that Hatsune Miku: Project Diva Future Tone, a previously Japan-only port of the previously Japan-only Hatsune Miku arcade game, will be released in Europe and the Americas early next year.

Coming to the PlayStation Network on January 10th, Future Tone will be made available in the same digital configurations as its Japanese release. There will be two separate song packs, called ‘Future Sound’ and ‘Colourful Tone’, the former focusing on tracks that have appeared in the Project Diva games, the latter being drawn from the Project Mirai and Arcade games. In total, there will be over 200 songs and more than 300 modules to choose from.

We only have prices in USD at the moment, but we can assume Euro and GBP pricing won’t be too far removed. Each pack will cost $29.99, or you can buy a bundle for $53.99 that will contain both packs as well as a couple of bonuses. Here’s an overview from Sega themselves:

About

Hatsune Miku: Project Diva Future Tone kicks off with a bang by giving players more than 200 songs for Miku and her digital friends to perform. Newcomers and veterans alike will have new controls to master, and tons of customization thanks an unparalleled amount of costume modules to unlock! Releasing on Jan. 10, 2017, players will be able to choose their Future Tone collection – from ‘Future Sound,’ a collection of songs centred around the Project Diva kinship of games or ‘Colourful Tone’ which collects songs related to the Project Mirai games and arcade songs. Lovers of all things Miku who purchase both packs will have both hairstyle customizations and exclusive “survival course” added on! Each package will be available for $29.99 or the entire Future Tone set of both will be at special discount for just $53.99.

Key Features
•Energy to Surpass Miku Herself – As the arcade version of Hatsune Miku, Future Tone amps up the game’s speed and energy, and players will need to master a different style of control, making it the most frenetic Miku rhythm game yet.
•Choose from Hundreds of Songs – With a final tally of 224 songs across both of Future Tone‘s packages, the game features the most expansive collection of songs yet from Hatsune Miku and her friends.
•Set the Stage – Dress up Hatsune Miku and her friends with more 340 unique costume modules and accessories across the Future Tone packages. Players who purchase both packages will get access to an exclusive feature where they can mix and match costumes and hairstyles.
•Bring the House Down –Future Tone takes full advantage of the PlayStation 4 and will present all of the arcade-style action rendered in glorious 1080p/60fps.

Hatsune Miku: Project Diva Future Tone is a pure arcade experience – players will be able to unlock songs as they play the songs in any of the game’s up to five difficulties: Easy, Normal, Hard, Extreme, and Extra Extreme, earning the game’s VP currency commensurate to the challenge level. VP can be used to buy new costume modules and customized items to style Miku and her friends in the manner of players’ choosing.

Pricing

When the game launches, players can find Hatsune Miku: Project Diva Future Tone on the PlayStation Store as a free download that contains two songs. Within the game’s user interface, players will be able to purchase the ‘Colourful Tone’ and/or ‘Future Sound’ packages individually for $29.99 or as a bundle for $53.99.

It’s great to be getting more Miku so soon after the western release of her latest game, Project Diva X. With Future Tone being a digital-only release in Japan, it was a longshot to expect it to make its way over here – especially in Europe where Project Diva X didn’t receive a physical release, leading fans to wonder if Sega was feeling a little hesitant about the series’ future here. It seems we needn’t have worried. Now to put some PSN credit on my Christmas list…